Astronomers have watched a giant planet vanish from view for the first time, after seven years of tracking it crossing the face of its star.
The planet, TOI-2535 b, sits about 1,000 light-years from Earth. NASA’s TESS space telescope recorded its transits from April 2019 until March 2026, when they stopped altogether, according to a UCLA-led study published on 9 November in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The planet has not gone anywhere. A hidden neighbour planet is tugging on its orbit and tilting it, so TOI-2535 b no longer passes between its star and Earth. The team puts the unseen companion at at least the mass of Saturn.
Samuel Yee, a UCLA postdoctoral fellow who led the study, said the planet’s orbit was tilting so quickly that its transit disappeared while the team was watching. The transits had been arriving up to six hours early or late and growing shorter and fainter before they stopped.
TOI-2535 b is a hot Jupiter, a gas giant that circles its star in 8.25 days. The researchers expect it to swing back into view in 30 to 50 years, when its orbit lines up with Earth again. It is the first planet around a single star whose transits astronomers have seen vanish.
Source: Phys.org
